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Japanese Politician’s Visit To Shrine Raises Worries

TOKYO — A hawkish opposition leader who could be Japan’s next prime minister took the politically inflammatory step of visiting a Tokyo war shrine on Wednesday, raising concerns about whether as national leader he would push a right-wing agenda that could further damage Japan’s ties with Asian neighbors when they are already strained by island disputes.

The opposition leader, Shinzo Abe, an outspokenly nationalistic former prime minister who is president of the conservative Liberal Democratic Party, paid his respects at the Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Japan’s war dead, including Class A war criminals. In the past, such visits have angered China and South Korea, two victims of Japan’s early 20th-century militarism, who view the large Shinto shrine in central Tokyo as a symbol of Japan’s refusal to atone.

Mr. Abe’s visit drew attention because it is the first that he has made to the shrine since winning an internal party election last month. During that election, he took the hardest line in a field of five conservative candidates, calling for expanding the limits of Japan’s pacifist Constitution to allow a full military, and supporting patriotic education that teaches a more sympathetic view of Japan’s actions during World War II.

Mr. Abe also had said he wanted to visit Yasukuni as prime minister, a provocative move that no Japanese prime minister has made in six years — including Mr. Abe himself during his first stint in that office beginning in 2006. He resigned a year later amid plummeting public support for a right-wing agenda that was out of touch with voters more concerned about a weak economy and the solvency of the national pension system.

Mr. Abe may now get a second chance. Opinion polls show his party in the lead with national elections expected as early as December, making Mr. Abe the most the most likely candidate to replace the current prime minister, the unpopular Yoshihiko Noda. The prospect has raised concerns that Mr. Abe could once again try to pull his nation to the right, and at a delicate time when Japan faces rising tensions with China and South Korea over territorial disputes.

What is less clear is whether the Japanese public will prove any more willing to follow him. Many Japanese have felt growing insecurities about the rising power of China, and their own country’s declining economic and political influence in Asia. But at the same time, most analysts agree that a majority of voters still oppose making waves in diplomatic issues, and would balk at causing further economic damage to Japan’s ties with China, its biggest trade partner. “Within the party, he had to take a strong stand,” said Shusei Tanaka, a politics expert at Fukuyama University. “The question now is whether he has learned that the same hard-line stand would turn off the general public.”

Whether Mr. Abe as prime minister would take a more confrontational stance toward the rest of Asia has also been a growing worry in the United States, which is bound by treaty to defend Japan. American analysts say the United States might balk at risking war with China if Japan is the one provoking a confrontation over the disputed islands, known as the Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.

“If he follows through on what he’s been saying, we could have serious problems,” said Gerald L. Curtis, an expert on Japanese politics at Columbia University. “Who the heck wants to go to war over the Senkakus?”

Photo

Shinzo Abe, center, a right-wing former prime minister and opposition leader, paid his respects at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on Wednesday.Credit
Kimimasa Mayama/European Pressphoto Agency

However, Mr. Curtis and other political analysts say it is unclear that Mr. Abe would actually follow such a hard line if he becomes prime minister. They said they were cautiously optimistic that Mr. Abe had learned what they called the biggest lesson of his failure five years ago: to not get too far out of touch with the public.

Many analysts and politicians describe Mr. Abe as a pragmatist who could prove more moderate in office. They point out that Mr. Abe’s first act last time as prime minister was to fly to Beijing to repair ties damaged by visits to Yasukuni by his predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi. During last month’s election, Mr. Abe cited that visit as proof he could manage good ties with China.

However, his record offers mixed results: as prime minister, he denied the Japanese military’s direct involvement in forcing women, many from the Korean Peninsula, into sexual slavery during World War II. This enraged not only South Korea, but also the United States House of Representatives, which responded with a resolution in 2007 asking Japan to apologize to the women, known euphemistically in Japan as comfort women.

Mr. Abe now seems intent on raising the issue again. He has vowed to revise the so-called Kono Statement, an official apology that Tokyo made in 1993 for the Japanese military’s sexual enslavement of women during World War II. Such a move would almost certainly draw a strong reaction from South Korea, where memories of Japan’s early 20th-century militarism remain raw. Anger at Japan over the comfort women was one reason South Korea has taken such a strident stand in its dispute with Japan over control of islands known as Dokdo in South Korea and Takeshima in Japan.

Mr. Abe also has taken a potentially explosive position on the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, saying he would consider stationing Coast Guard personnel on the currently uninhabited islands to improve security. China has already shown it will respond forcefully to any act to change the status quo. Last month, Beijing responded angrily to the Japanese government’s decision to buy three of the five islands.

One big question raised by the return of Mr. Abe is whether the Japanese public could prove more receptive to a right-wing agenda today than it did five years ago. Japan’s growing anxiety about China has already made its public more willing to stand up to the Chinese around the disputed islands more forcibly than before, for example by posting dozens of Coast Guard cutters around the islands. Analysts say that Mr. Abe’s nationalistic views could find even more fertile ground if China were to escalate its pressure on Japan.

However, for now, only a minority of voters seem taken by Mr. Abe’s right-wing talk. A majority seems more worried about other issues, like whether Mr. Abe would just quit again after a year if things do not go his way, as happened in 2007.

Analysts said this skepticism is reflected in Mr. Abe’s low popularity. Recent polls show him with support ratings in the mid-30s, only slightly ahead of Mr. Noda. Even if Mr. Abe becomes prime minister again, analysts said this would not reflect a voter embrace, but rather a rejection of the governing Democrats, who are seen as poor managers of last year’s earthquake and nuclear crisis.

“Abe’s attraction is his experience on security issues, which make him seem strong and reliable,” said Hiroshi Nakanishi, a professor of government at Kyoto University. “His biggest risk is if he wanders too far to the right, yet again.”

A version of this article appears in print on October 18, 2012, on page A15 of the New York edition with the headline: Japanese Politician’s Visit To Shrine Raises Worries. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe